


Wife Her, Winger

by ardentmuse



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Aurors, F/M, Fluff, Idiots in Love, Love, Marriage Proposal, Ministry of Magic (Harry Potter), Minor Violence, Post-Hogwarts, Romance, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-08-11 12:35:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20153683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ardentmuse/pseuds/ardentmuse
Summary: When Talbott and Tonks spend extra days in the field tracking some death eaters, Talbott assumes you won’t care much. But seeing just how hard his work has impacted you and heeding some wise words from Tonks may be enough to push your relationship to the next level.





	Wife Her, Winger

Blasts of embers fly past Talbott’s head as he finds refuge behind a muggle bus stop. Two weeks he and Tonks have spent tracking down the Bhatti siblings after they abandoned their shop in Knockturn Alley. Of course, the instant they make an appearance has to be in the middle of Piccadilly Circus just as all the clubs are letting out their drunken patrons into the rainy streets. Everywhere, chaos.

“Watch your left!” Tonks shouts as she dives behind a trash can, giving Talbott just enough time to pull his head behind the glass of the bus shelter to avoid red flares from the death eater brothers. The tips of his hair burn maroon, the spell just grazing his mane.

Rowdy patrons of the pubs continue down the streets, one even cheering on the “street performers doing sweet magic tricks!” Talbott takes the distraction as an opportunity to readjust his wand in his grip, settling his fingers into the warn grooves of the wood, ready to strike.

Talbott hears a cheer and then feels the force of a person being slammed into the bus shelter. A scream, followed by the pounding of feet, make it clear that the muggles now know these aren’t two performers just looking to make some tips.

“On my count,” Talbott whispers to Tonks, her hair now a fiery red as the panicked cries of pedestrians grow louder. She nods, pressing a hand against the metal of the bin, preparing to launch herself upward and into danger at Talbott’s command.

A second passes, long and excruciating as another curse flies into the crowds of people. Another second extends as the footsteps of the brothers grow louder, splashing upon the pavement. And a third in which a bus comes blasting around the corner, creating a tidal wave of muck over the sidewalk.

“Now!” Talbott yells, jumping upward with a forceful “Stupefy,” just as the Bhatti brothers are doused and blinded by the murky puddle. 

[[MORE]]  
The taller of the two brothers is pushed backwards into the road, stumbling over the curb. Tonks manages to injure the second’s arm. She moves forward to detain him but the bus is about to pull away again. Tonk’s opponent quickly dives under the double decker, cradling his arm as best he can. And by the time Tonks can get to the bus, it drives off and underneath is no trace of a wizard except for a few drops of blood.

Talbott’s combatant, still in the streets, smiles and laughs as Talbott continues his pursuit. He stands taunting in the middle of the street dodging Talbott’s quickly flicked stuns until Talbott is close but then with a quick little wave of his fingers, he disapparates just as a taxi comes a little too close. Talbott is one stride from running into the street but Tonks catches him by the neck of his coat, the cab missing his body by only inches.

Talbott pulls himself from Tonk’s arms and leans once again against the bus shelter, the exhaustion of the past dozen days on the road fully taking their toll.

“We finally find them and we’ve still got nothing,” he says to himself. With a sigh, he throws his head back against the bus shelter with a loud bang. The pain doesn’t register over the frustration.

“Not nothin’.”

Talbott looks up to see Tonk’s hair a pleasant bubblegum once again and in her hands she shakes proudly back and forth a long spindly wand made of yew wood.

For the first time since he had kissed you goodbye all those weeks ago, Talbott smiles.

The sun is coming up just as Tonks and Talbott make their descent into the atrium of the Ministry. Upon seeing his reflection in the glass of the elevator, mud-soaked and completely disheveled, Talbott utters a quiet prestidigitation charm to himself and watchs in satisfaction as he becomes clean again, though the edges of his hair are still burnt.

“Trying to impress someone?” Tonks teases with a little too much eyebrow.

Talbott doesn’t even look at her.

“Y/N won’t be in the office for hours. I just don’t like dirt.”

“Sure,” Tonks inflects, the smile growing larger on her face as she watches Talbott squirm.

After a few moments of silence, Tonks asks, kicking the elevator sides in an act to appear disinterested, “So how long have you two been together now? Seven years?”

“Long enough.”

“And it’s going well? You’re happy?”

Talbott sighs, “Of all the problems in my life, I can assure you Y/N is not one of them.”

Tonks continues on, staring at the ceiling now, “And you think she’s—“

“What are you getting at, Tonks?” Talbott growls at his companion.

Tonks drops her eyes to meet his, meeting the challenge of his intense gaze.

“Wife her, Winger.”

“Excuse me?”

Tonks opens her mouth full, puffing out her cheeks as she emphasizes each word, “Wife. Her.”

Talbott simply huffs and turns away.

“I doubt she’d want that,” he says into the air, loud enough that Tonks could hear it.

“She’s put up with you this long,” Tonks teases but when Talbott’s shoulders stay rigid, she continues in a more soothing voice.

“I was there for your first date, bud. You too dorks are perfect for each other. You put your life on the line every day and you have a woman waiting to see you healthy and home again. You’ve made something beautiful with my girl. Don’t you think this job might be a little more – I don’t know – meaningful, if you knew what you were fighting for?”

“I don’t need to marry the girl to fight for her.”

“True,” Tonks said, realizing her argument wasn’t very sound.

“Besides,” Talbott continued, his cheeks a bit redder for the talk, “She’s not just waiting for me to come back safely. She has her own life. I’m just a blip in it.”

As the elevator doors open into the grand entranceway of the ministry, nearly empty at this time of morning, Tonks and Talbott immediately hear a shrieking coming from the fountain.

“Talbott!” you scream, running the 20 yards and jumping into the arms of your boyfriend. He catches you between his hands, running them down your flanks as you cradle yourself deeper into his neck.

“Merlin, Talbott, I was so, so worried about you,” you breath against his skin.

“I missed you, too,” he agrees, pushing lightly on your shoulders to take in your face. The relief he feels in his heart at having you in his arms once more is immediate. His shoulders loosen, his brain clears of the fog of battle his breath evens, and suddenly everything, every sight and sound and scent, is you.

Talbott presses lightly against your shoulders, pushing you away from his body so he can examine your face. You smile up at him, wetness coating your lips from your tears and the gentle kisses you had been placing upon his collarbone. Your cheeks are streaked with water lines. Your eyes, which were always so bright and brilliant, are dull and the bags underneath them are pronounced from lack of sleep. Your top is slightly wrinkled and your hair needs some attention.

“You haven’t slept,” Talbott says as observation, not question.

You look at the ground for just a moment before meeting his eyes once more.

“Someone in the Department of International Magical Cooperation needs to be here to communicate with Tokyo,” you laugh, but when Talbott raises an eyebrow at you in question, you add, “I couldn’t sleep. I was too worried about you – both of you.”

Tonks nods at the acknowledgement, smiling at you. As you turn your attention back to Talbott, you don’t notice the way your friend nods her head at you and pleads with Talbott with her eyes.

You fall back against Talbott’s chest and whisper to him, “You were supposed to be back two days ago. I heard nothing. You can’t blame me for being worried sick. I’d be lost without you, Talbott.”

As you sink deeper into his arms, he looks down at your head against his shoulder, the curve of your back as you take deep breaths, and the soft nuzzle of your nose as you claim him as yours. And suddenly, just like that, he understands all the lies he’s been telling himself about how casual your relationship is, how little you need each other, and how fine he’d be if you decide you want something else with your life, are just that – lies. He feels the revelation sending chills down his spin.

“Well, I think I’ll be bringing this wand down to Level 2 and see if—“ Tonks cuts herself off, realizing Talbott has no interest in what she’s saying if the way he’s cupping your head with a look of shock in his eyes is any indication. “Yep,” she says as she wanders off down the corridor.

“My girl,” Talbott thinks, his brain finally seeing clearly the precious thing before him – not the woman, you were always precious, but the relationship itself, a level of commitment and shared concern, the intertwining of lives and values and joys that two people could only long to find in one another. “My beautiful bird, my everything. How I’ve longed for you,” he thinks. “My wife,” he tests in his brain, feeling the warmth that spread through his chest at the simple phrase, and especially the permanence of it.

As he thinks the words, your head pops up from his chest to meet his gaze. You rub the tears from your eyes and look at him, pleading.

“Your—your wife?”

Only then does Talbott realize what he did. So often he thinks out loud, so often he sometimes doesn’t even register his lips are moving. His face fills with panic and confusion and, at the sight of it, you completely deflate.

“Oh, okay,” you whisper, pulling yourself out of his arms, “I guess we should get back to work then. I’ll meet you—“

Talbott cuts you off with a bold kiss to the lips. His hands cup your jaw and his fingers brush lightly against your ears. His lips are unyielding in their desire to wipe the doubt from your mind, to show you that while he may not have expected to say the words, he certainly intended their meaning.

His propriety gets the best of him as the chime of the elevator behind alters him to the presence of others. When he pulls away, he doesn’t let go of your face.

“My wife,” he whispers again and lifts his voice to add, “Whenever you want to be. Tomorrow here at the Ministry or ten years from now in the grandest wedding the wizarding community has ever seen, I’ll do it. Just next time I leave for a mission, I want to know you’re here waiting for me.”

You laugh as tears prickle at your eyes.

“I’d be here waiting for you regardless.”

“That’s what I said,” Talbott says to himself. He shakes his head at the revelation of just how perfect you are for him, how much you understand him and just how much can go unspoken. Though at the last thought he feels a tinge of regret. Just because you understand each other so much without words doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to hear them, and often.

“I love you,” Talbott breathes like a prayer against your lips.

“And I you, Mr. Winger.”

At the words, he grabs at your waist tightly, holding you to him.

“But perhaps,” you chide, “You could propose to me more properly? At some point when you haven’t just nearly had your head blown off?” You run your fingers through the edges of his hair, chard bits falling between your knuckles. “I’d like to know you still feel this way after the adrenaline has warn off.”

Talbott meets your eyes and curses himself under his breath when he sees real doubt there. All he can do is nod before taking your hand and kisses the knuckles with the gentlest reverence he can muster.

“I’ll do my best,” he says before taking your hand to lead you back to your office just a few floors below his own. As you curl your fingers around his, gripping tightly as you continue your walk, Talbott’s brain is aflutter with ideas. Should he ask your parents for your hand or is that too old-fashioned? Would he be able take time off, with tensions rising in the war the way they are, for a proper honeymoon? And most importantly, would Tonks want to be his best man or would you snatch her up before he got the chance to ask.

**Author's Note:**

> https://ardentmuse.tumblr.com/post/186843269876/wife-her-winger-talbott-x-reader


End file.
